Keeping with tradition I’ve got a post prepared for today. This year, it’s not very seasonal in itself, but nevertheless; Merry Christmas all! Now on with my most juvenile puns so far.

In the run down and half ruined Nost-Óul Towers, the wizard Theodore of Konstipah (locally nicknamed Konstipah Ted) have recently taken up residence. The towers have been empty for many years prior to Theodore’s moving in and quite a lot of cleaning out have been required by local muscle men and roughnecks. Apparently not all prior residents have moved out of the dungeons below the tower. When asked he claims he moved to the Stillburg area to have some peace and quiet to concentrate on his work, but exactly what the nature of that work is have not been said.

Theodore of Konstipah – Human Wizard (38 pts)
Quality 4+, Combat 2. Magic-User.A wizened old wizard, more interested in lining his own pockets than anything else. He’s not one for bravery, but will not shy away from combat if threatened.

The model is a Citadel scenario model from The Magnificent Sven named Aygar Mistletaine, sculpted by Aly Morrison most likely. I made the colour scheme intentionally gaudy, figuring it would be fitting for a kook of a wizard. No white, grey or black here… The sunburst motif on the back is a bit of a failure though, and repainted several times. This was the best I managed, some of the old attempts were much, much worse.

Old Ted is a notorious treasure hunter and he seems to be one of those wizards who are not motivated by scholarly pursuits and enlightenment in itself, but rather see those as a tool to increase his wealth.

It’s taken me a while, but by golly I did it – I’ve posted 100 posts here (that’s counting the posts migrated from the old blog too). To celebrate this, I will share some photos of where I was at a few years ago, when I played my first game of Song of Blades and Heroes. It really marks my return to the hobby of miniature gaming. After that, I started collecting metal miniatures again.

Our first game was played in november 2009. We used prepainted D&D miniatures, some terrain I had just gotten started on (still have not finished neither hill nor house). I had purchased and assembled a single GW gothic wood thingy, it too languishes unpainted. Some WOTC D&D tiles helped give the landscape some colour.

Rather basic…

The game was a blast though, and we tried to get some more in as soon as possible. The next session was in mid december, 2009. Things have shaped up somewhat, the brown paper surface is replaced by a Citadel Battlemat. I’ve started building some rocks and repainted two D&D minis.

Slowly getting there…

A week later we did our next sitting. This time, we did several scenarios in a day and I had also finished some of my rock pieces and started building some more.

That way is much too rocky…

A few months later, late february 2010, I had put my christmas presents to good use and finished a few stands of wood and even more rocks. Things are really shaping up now! We played a series of linked games with a sort-of narrative. The battle reports are actually published here under the Pyramid Campaign tag.

Only finished terrain, for the first time!

In may 2010, I married my wife. More importantly, a week later I played a rather stonking zombie game in which we used my first Citadel Townscape buildings! Yay! There’s a report of that too, right here!

Form an orderly queue now…

In july 2010, an epic mile stone was reached. We played our first game with metal miniatures fully painted by yours truly; the first scenario in our Stillburg Campaign! Here’s the write-up on that.

Lead, lead – glorious lead!

The most recent game was more than a year ago though… we’re hoping to remedy that soon – but I honestly didn’t think it was that long ago. I guess both me and my cousin marrying and having kids in the last two years sort of slowed the momentum a bit. Here’s the third game of Stillburg goodness, played in early december 2011. Battle report more recently posted here.

Inaugural game of the refurbished man-cave!

Granted, we have played a few games every now and then. For instance, we met up in september to have a short go at Cavern Crawl from Funghy Fipps. No post on that, but here’s a photo from the evening.

Spelunktastic!

Looking back, it’s quite amazing what can happen in just a few years. The blog opened up in february 2010, the first post was about me completing the rocks. If anything, this blog and the LAF forums have been the driving force behind my hobby endeavours. It’s painfully obvious that I’m not doing this for the games we play, as we hardly ever play any games. The worst part is, I really want to have a go at War of the Ring again – it’s been several years since we played that. Or what about Hero Quest. Haven’t touched that since 2009 either. Haven’t posted about it here, but I did a pretty serious DIY copy of it, including custom cards and a metric fuck-ton of D&D plastics that cost me a small fortune to get multiples of some rather rare models. Here’s a pic of a game in progress.

All these games go un-played though, as time and commitment is lacking. The main problem is my approach to gaming… I want to play games with my friends, people I enjoy hanging out with. I don’t really care that much about the game itself, it’s the socializing that’s important to me. I’ve tried playing in clubs and in-store events, but if there’s no personal relation with your opponent it’s just going through the motions without passion. I won’t waste time playing games with people I wouldn’t enjoy hanging out with under other circumstances.

Let’s hope there’s an abundance of gaming in store for me in 2013. I’ve recently come across a fellow gaming geek at my work place, whom I also share a lot of other things with. Unfortunately, for scheduling purposes, one of them is being a parent of a li’l un. So far, we’ve managed to get two games of Blood Bowl played, in about four months. Not bad, for old geezers!

This model is a Citadel Talisman pilgrim, sculpted by Aly Morrison. One of my (many) sub-collections is metal Talisman models. I painted him for the LPL in march this year and have posted a group shot with him before.

Tarandor – Human Pilgrim (45 pts)
Quality 4+, Combat 3. Cleric.As a young boy, Tarandor set out on his pilgrimage for the shrine of Gadd. In all those years his faith never faltered. Not until he, as an old man, reached the ruins of the once splendid shrine. During his life-long travels the old gods have lost most of their followers and not many even remember Gadd. He now lives with the monks in the last remaining priory of Gadd, just outside of Stillburg.

Tarandor is yet another character whom can be enlisted in the heroes’ aid. To do so, they will have to rescue him from the following hairy situation:

I’ve finally finished up this little warband of chaotic barbarians, sculpted by Jes Goodwin for Asgard in the mid 80s and released as a box set called “Barbarian Personalities“. They are now being manufactured and sold by Alternative Armies and are quite a bargain. The ogre is another Goodwin sculpt, from Citadel’s C23 range. The astute reader will remember when I posted about receiving these guys. I’m very happy to have them finished the same year I got them! They were all painted by Paul “v2″ Sanderson, and a great job he did! I can not recommend the man enough. Fast, well painted, very communicative and all round top bloke! I finished the bases and took the photos, but that’s about all I did.

Here’s the roster for the whole happy gang! I’ve used their names as given by Asgard, and tried to make all models individual stats wise. It’ll be a challenging warband to play, due to them being all different.

Kern the Reaver (60 pts). Q3, C3. Leader

Clonar Sternbrow (27 pts). Q4, C3. Group fighter

Alaric Mancleaver (30 pts). Q4, C4.

Koth Beasthelm (35 pts). Q4, C4. Savage

Hax Ragged (35 pts). Q4, C4. Heavy armour

Taran Firedaughter (38 pts). Q3, C3. Berserk

Will Skegling (30 pts). Q3, C3.

Mad Rollo (23 pts). Q4, C3.

Arflane the Archer (44 pts). Q3, C3. Shooter: long

Aurok Storrirkin (46 pts). Q3, C4. Steadfast

Skai Wolfbane (36 pts). Q3, C3. Forrester

Two Cuts (36 pts). Q3, C3. Stealth

Old One-Horn (54 pts). Q4, C4. Big, Long move, Mutant.
Once again I feel the need to apologize for my photos. I still haven’t gotten to grips with the new camera, and struggle with both lighting and focus. Oh well, in time I think they’ll shape up.

These guys really help my annual total, which is now 84 painted – 254 acquired = -170! I did receive a few snotlings the other day (cheers Ti!), but I’m not including them in the annual total as they’re crew for the pump wagon which is in itself one model only. I also traded some snotlings away, so I guess it all evens out.

This is one of the characters I painted up for the LPL in early 2012. I promised to do individual write-ups and the only thing missing for quite some time now have been photos. I finally had some time today to take a few pics. I’ll post the other guys over the next few days.

Willhelm Ratzenwurst – Human Knight (30 pts)
Quality 3+, Combat 3. Heavy Armour, Unruly.Sir Willhelm Ratzenwurst is a knight-errant of questionable skill. Granted, he slew the (alledgedly) Great Scourge of Talabec, but in all honesty that was little more than an average sized boar with an exceptionally foul temper. His most recent adventure saw him lose both squire, horse and distraught damsel to the sulphurous wrath of Katarax, the elder dragon Greenleaf Peaks. He travelled by boat along the river Aver to Averridge where he then went north to seek gold and fame in the ruins of the temple of Gadd. After a near death experience, he retreated to Stillburg in search of mercenary work as he is now completely and utterly impovered.

The model is (still) Citadel Lord of Battle, sculpted by Jes Goodwin. Here’s a photo of him staving off some undead in the Barrowhills north of Averridge.